


The Weekend Pancake Report

by keeprunning



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Band Break Up, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeprunning/pseuds/keeprunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank clears his throat. "For the record - if you wanted to know if I missed you, you could've just asked. Like, instead of getting a record deal over it and obsessively instagraming pancakes."</p>
<p>"Tweeting," Gerard corrects. "Kind of thought you hated me, though."</p>
<p>"Maybe I do."</p>
<p>"Do you?" Gerard asks quickly, overly light.</p>
<p>There's a longer pause. When Frank speaks again, his voice is very small. "I don't know. Sometimes, no. Sometimes… more."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weekend Pancake Report

**Author's Note:**

> Set during a time after the band broke up and before either Frank or Gerard's solo projects were released, and inspired by a YouTube video which i cannot for the life of me locate, in which an interviewer thought Gerard saying he and Frank had kids meant the two had kids TOGETHER. If you know what I'm talking about, by all means let me know.
> 
> This work has not been proof-read, since I'm new to the fandom and was unsure who to ask. All errors are mine, and if you feel like pointing them out to me, I'll love you lots.
> 
> Feedback very welcome. :)

When the band breaks up, the fans blame everyone. Well - everyone, except Ray. They start with Gerard - tear into him in a way that makes Frank ache in a way that's both vindicated and pissed the hell off. They move onto Frank after, kind of, but any complaints they have with him are mixed with pity and that's worse, somehow. Then there's some sort of obviously-fucking-false cheating scandal that the blogs make up about Mikey, so everyone hates him for a bit. It's like Ray is the only one anyone still fucking likes, but Frank isn't at all surprised because - well - t's Ray. Even if MyChem's had denoted at his say-so, who could be mad at Ray fucking Toro?

As it happens, the break up is not Ray's fault. It isn't any of theirs. It's some fucking interviewer on the international leg of the Danger Days tour who, when Gerard says, "Frank and I are dads," exclaims all happy, high-pitched: "Oh! I didn't know you had kids _together._ "

It's a funny thing, at the time. They all lose it, too little sleep and too much tour blowing the hilarity way out of proportion. Gerard brays his donkey laugh and scratches at his hair and topples forward in his seat - all at once - and still manages to catch Frank's eye. Frank feels his heart stutter in his rib cage, little kicks like the Grinch's gave when it got three sizes too big, or whatever. Gerard grins in that way he has that kind of makes you feel like he's saying like, _hey, holy shit. Can you believe this crazy adventure we are on together?_ Frank grins back, easy like blinking, and everything is really okay until he looks in the dirty bathroom mirror at the venue to fix his hair, and something about meeting his own eyes makes his stomach turn over. Suddenly, the interview is not that fucking funny. There's no train of thought that leads him there, or if it is, it's way the fuck off the rails. It's actually a kind of inexplicable certainty, which freaks him out even more. 

He gets his hair perfect (it even gets an approving nod from Mikey) but Frank feels _off_. It's the kind of feeling that won't let you pinpoint it, but it kind of feels like starting work at ten when you normally start at nine; something little setting the word askew for the rest of the day. He spends soundcheck - and most of the show - watching his fingers move on the strings. He has to keep reminding himself that they belong to him; that he's not just watching some weird, half-asleep movie through his own eyes. He know's Gerard senses something from the way Gerard inflects certain lines and keeps shoving the microphone in Frank's face but keeping his hands pointedly to himself. Frank can't bring himself to look up that night, not even once.

They come off the encore into the wings, Mikey and Ray ahead, Frank and Gerard following like always. Frank usually tucks into Gerard's side, usually needs the steadiness of him to bring him down after the rehearsed chaos of the show, but when Gerard makes to put his arm around Frank, Frank finds himself pushing it roughly away and glaring.

Frank feels a breath huff out through his nostrils and he realizes what's wrong, the thought flashing red and blue like a police siren in his head.

He's _pissed_

"I wish we did!" he exclaims in a desperate voice, like they were mid-conversation - or, in this case, mid-argument. It's sort of a thing everyone in the band does - start in the middle of a conversation and expect the other person to catch up with the beginning that took place in their head - so Gerard isn't totally thrown. He just smiles really small and uncertain, like he's trying to figure out what Imaginary Gerard said in the Imaginary Conversation to piss Frank off so much.

"What?" he says.

"Do I really have to fucking tell you?" 

"Uh - fucking yes?"

"Kids, Gerard, okay?" Frank yells like Gerard is a total fucking idiot, which sometimes - like now - he is. Frank knows he's not being fair, but the feeling has crashed all over him, slamming into his head and coating him like that slime they have at the Kid's Choice Awards. He's white hot with it, half mad at Gerard for not getting it yet, and half mad at himself for not getting it until now. "I wish we had _kids._ "

"We do have kids!" Gerard's brow practically burrows into itself. It's hurts; how genuinely confused he is.

Frank pushes him with flat palms, not at all hard enough to hurt, but just enough to get his attention - to pull him out of all the back corners of his brain. Gerard only rocks back on his heels a little, but he tilts forwards fast - overcompensates, like Frank thought he would - and Frank catches him by the neck and hauls him in for a kiss. It's a rough one, the kind that's more teeth than anything, and they both pull back gasping for air.

"Listen, Gee, okay?" Frank pleads, almost a whisper. "I. Wish. That. We-" he pauses, glancing down at the air between them, and willing him to get it. "I wish that we had kids."

Frank wonders if Gerard's brain is written all over his face like that for everyone, or if Frank just knows him that well. He can tell the exact moment he gets it, and hears what's Frank saying behind the words.

Frank want's Gerard. He wants to be with him - all the way and for real. He wants to call Gerard his boyfriend or husband and have a house together and a thousand dogs and a hundred kids. Because Frank loves him.

"Oh," is all he says.

Frank's eyes almost roll out of his head. "Fucking oh," mutters.

Gerard hugs Frank and Frank hugs him back - to be fair, one time Frank walked in on Gerard blowing some dude, and the surprise of seeing Frank in gap between the Port-A-Potties and the fence at Warped Tour had shocked Gerard's system into realizing just how much booze was in it. Gerard spent the next forty-five minutes puking, and Frank still hugged him back when Gerard's arms came up around him. So that's exactly what he does now, and when Gerard's fingers knock on his chin he lifts it willingly. The kiss is chaste but urgent, like Gerard's trying to say something without _saying_ anything. Frank matches him, kisses back like his little life depends on it, and it doesn't mean he's not mad as hell. It just means, more than that, he loves Gerard.

They walk through the parking lot back to the bus with a weird distance between their shoulders thats never been there before, not even the first day they met. Frank keeps expecting Gerard to knock them together, cut him a sideways grin so they can dissolve into giggles and laugh this whole thing off.

He doesn't, though.

They sit down on the pavement outside the bus. Frank leans on the big wheel while Gerard sits criss-cross-apple-sauce and digs through his pockets. He produces two cigarettes, which he lights at once. He hands one over - backwards, like you're supposed to pass guns and knives - and greedily inhales on his own. Frank fiddles for a second, watching Gerard take his first real drag. Frank knows, because of science and the gross photos they print on the packs, that smoking is bad for your lungs, but when Gerard smokes it always looks like he's been fighting for air all day, and finally he can really breathe. Gerard catches him looking, but Frank doesn't shy away from his gaze. They smoke and stare and finally Gerard speaks.

"So," he says on an exhale, turning the word into a bit of a hiss, "I didn't know you wanted that."

"Yeah." Frank bounces the heel of his almost-too-small shoes against the pavement.

"You never… You never said, you know? I mean… you married Jamia. You told me I should marry Lindsey."

"Jamia _left me,_ Gee. You fucking know that." Frank can't help but spit that, but the twinge in his guts as he does reminds him that that's not fair, either. Gerard knows Jamia left, but he doesn't know why - not exactly. Gerard didn't see long-sad, knowing way she had smiled when Frank had insisted he loved her and gone, _yes, of course you do, Frankie. But not like you love him._ "I _know-_ Fuck, Frankie, I'm just… I'm just saying…" Gerard sighs and becomes at least two inches shorter under it, like even is spine is too tired to sit tall. "I don't know what the fuck I'm saying."

"That's fucking apparent," Frank says, but there's no venom anymore. He's too tired, and too sad.

Gerard looks at him, and he's frowning so hard that he's almost doing it loudly. Then he sighs and and flicks his cigarette butt and it arches, Icarus in the fluorescent lights, before it disappears onto the pavement. Gerard unfolds himself and enters the bus, hitting the stairs hard, and there is a moment when Frank stares at the Denny's across the street and tries to work up the courage to climb on after him and solider on. He's trying to sipher bravery from the ground into his feet when he realizes that he… really, actually, a thousand percent does not want to do that. Frank loves MyChem - loves it more than his own life, most times. He would just about do anything for the band but this, he realizes, is the limit. This is his breaking point.

He throws his butt after Gerard's and boards the bus before he can change his mind.

The band ends in the living room of the bus, and it's nobody's fault. It just happens. Ray is playing videogames from the couch, bobbing his head to the soundtrack of Tony Hawk Five. Mikey's typing furiously into his phone while he lays belly-down on the floor between Ray the t.v. and between Frank and Gerard, who is using the couch as a back rest and looking like he's trying hard to look absorbed in his sketch book. 

"I have never asked you for anything," Frank says. Fuck the preamble, Frank is starting this conversation with his motherfucking topic sentence.

All three of them look up, but Ray and Mikey must see something on Frank's face that makes it really fucking clear who he's talking to, because they both look away really quickly. 

Gerard's mouth turns down, one side of his frown tugging down lower than the other. 

"I know, Frankie," he murmurs. "I know that."

"Then you know what I fucking feel, Gee. And you know what I want. So.. I am. I'm asking."

His pronouncement is followed by a long, thick silence - the kind they write about in books but Frank has never experienced firsthand until today. Ray becomes exaggeratedly absorbed in being Tony Hawk, even though Frank can see he's totally just skating in circles, weaving around the bars rather than grinding them. Mikey keeps staring intently into his phone, but his fingers are still. And Gerard just… looks. Watches? It's hard to say. His face is almost a caricature of itself - pale, ghost white like when they toured for _Three Cheers_ , mouth and eyes all perfect 'o''s. He stares like he's never seen Frank before in his whole life, and Frank stares right back. He feels defiant. He wills himself to not look away first.

Gerard does - always does. He sighs, slowly pushes the tangle of art supplies in his lap to the ground, and unfolds like paper until he's standing, too.

"Frankie. You are… confused, okay? I care about you so much - fuck, I love you so much, you're right about that - but you don't know what you're asking for. You think you're in love with me, but you're not. You are in love with a concept, an idea. And it's a beautiful idea, Frankie, but that's all it is."

Frank bristles because yeah, okay, it had started that way. In the early days, Frank had been drunk most of the time, and Gerard had been drunk all of the time. The sexism and homophobia in the scene was disgusting and, at the time at least, the most obvious way to combat that was to blur the lines of gender and sex as much as they could, and shove it right in everyone's fucking faces. So this whole damn… _thing_ , this _GerardandFrank_ , had started as a statement - an idea. And that's all it was, at first. Just, somewhere along the way, on stage kisses turned into kisses off stage in back hallways and hotel rooms and vans and before he really recognized what was happening, Frank found himself in real and actual love with Gerard. And the bitch of it was - is - that Frank _knows_ Gerard feels it too, and right in this moment he can watch him punking out all over his face. It's fucking classic Gerard, and it makes Frank to kiss him and kick him in equal parts.

"You know what, Gerard? Fuck you," Gerard recoils like he's been slapped, and the reaction adds flame to Frank's fury. " _Fuck. You._ I'm in love with you, and I have _been in love_ with you. For Christ's sake - I loved you when you were a nobody fuck-up from their mom's basement in Jersey and a fucking alcoholic, coke-head asshole. I loved you when you scrapped an entire album I poured my guts into and when I had to stay up all night so you wouldn't _kill yourself_ and when you had the flu - Gerard, I held the fucking _bucket for you_ in the back of the van all the way to Minnesota. I have washed puke from your _hair_ -"

Frank's throat constricts, and whatever he was going to say next chokes off. Frank heaves a huge breath that scrapes at his lungs, and shakes his head. "I do everything for you, Gee, and I throw everything else away. You shit all over me, and I do it. And you have the balls to stand here and tell me I love a motherfucking _idea_? Well, here's some news, Gee:

"The idea of you? _Is not so fucking beautiful._ "

Gerard says nothing. That's the worst part. He just stands there with his palms splayed open in front of him, like he's done it in surprise and gotten stuck there. Everyone is frozen and looking for all the word like they're waiting for a fade to black so they can move into the next scene, but the electrical on the bus has always been pretty damn good. it's Ray who breaks the silence.

"Okay, that's enough," he says, and he's trying to be stern with them but Ray's never had that dad poker-face, and it comes out a lot more pleading than threatening. 

The laugh is barking out of Frank before he realizes that it's coming from him. It sounds crazy and sad and he hadn't felt like crying before, but now he really, really does.

"It's not enough, though," he says, "That's the whole fucking point."

He turns on his heel and walks off the bus. Their driver, who obviously took five during the yelling, is smoking and leaning against the door. He nods at Frank and Frank nods back and Frank is half-way across the parking lot before he realizes he's expecting Gerard to come running after him. He stops short and looks back at the bus. It's pathetic, and Frank will _never_ cop to it, but he waits. He stares hard at the bus, which remains maddenly still. He squints, like if he concentrates hard enough he will see what's going on underneath the metal. Frank ends up giving himself a really unmanning five minutes in which he scuffs his toe against the pavement and shoves his hands in and out of his pockets. No one comes out of the bus. Frank walks to the Denny's across the road and calls home.

\---- 

Hambone is waiting for him at the Jersey airport, and that's a good thing because Frank would know Hambone anywhere, and he can use all the familiarity he can get because the last bit of his life has been a little blurry around the edges. Well, okay. A _lot_ blurry. He's honestly not sure if it's been days, months, or hours since he left Japan. He had poured the remains of his Japanese money into the UNICEF box at the Starbucks in the airport, and since then all he's seen is the inside of planes, the inside of airports, and the really, really white bathrooms both have in them. 

The maddening part is that Gerard loves Frank, and Frank knows that. Gerard probably even knows that Frank knows that he does - fucking whatever - but Gerard is doing fuck all about it. Every time Frank gets off a plane to wait for a connecter he powers up his phone, expecting a missed call or an apology/come back text. Every time his phone is achingly blank. Nothing even from Ray or Mikey, which makes him both sad and angry. The first text he ends up getting is from motherfucking Bob, for irony, and it's just a selfie featuring his stupid bearded face and a stupid sculpture he's welded that looks kind of like a dick.

Frank is in San Francisco, enduring the world's most annoying layover, when his phone finally rings. He overbalances in his rush to pick up and topples ontothe airport floor, getting weird looks. He accepts the call without checking the number.

"Fucking ouch, _hello_ ," he grouses.

"Hey Frank," says Gerard, and Frank almost throws up.

The band ends - officially, kind of for the second time - on a conference call that spans continents. After it's over and he's hung up, Frank can't remember what was said, but he remembers how he felt hearing it. He gets on his flight and, half way over the ocean, decides to nurse his broken heart by getting fantastically drunk. 

By the time he lands in Jersey he practically has to be poured off the airplane, and he really thinks he's only gotten away with being so sloshed because he's been tipping really, really well and his flight attendant - Lisa, a very nice middle-aged lady that reminded Frank vaguely of Ray's aunt - recognized him and said that _Three Cheers_ had gotten her daughter through some really tough years.

"Holy fucking shit," says Hambone. Frank slides into the passenger seat of his car and tries not to look as obviously bombed as he is. They pull randomly into the traffic and proceed to very, very jerkily exit the airport area, Hambone driving in his signature balls-to-the-wall-we're-going-sixty-or-stopped manner. Frank concentrates on not throwing up. He's just starting to wish he'd called his mom or something instead, even though she'd totally yell at him for being this loser-drunk in public, when they finally hit highway and things smooth out a bit.

"So, sore heart?" Hambone says finally. Frank hadn't actually said what happened on the phone, just said _I'm coming back_ and _the band is done_ and asked Hambone to help him arrange some flights, but he supposes it's pretty fucking obvious.

"Sore heart," agrees Frank. "Sore heart, sore hands, sore stomach, sore eyes. It hurts everywhere, man. This kind of a thing." He flaps his hand around, trying to minimize the self-pity with a wave, but it's true. He misses Gerard already, and fiercely. Misses him in his lower back and bitten lips and and hands that just spent four flights interlocked with each other instead of a very certain someone else's.

"In my experience? If you really, really love someone and and they don't love you back? _They_ miss out. Not you."

Frank looks out the window. New Jersey says the sign, but some kid has edited it with spray to read _OLD Jersey._ There's a metaphor in there somewhere, and Frank knows it, but he leans his forehead against the window and closes his eyes.

\--- 

After this, Frank literally sleeps for 71 hours. Hambone helps him with his bags that Friday and hangs around being concerned for a bit, but when he leaves Frank crawls into bed with his shoes on, and doesn't emerge for three days. He wakes up Tuesday morning like from a coma. All the lights in his house are on, and TV is fuzzing uselessly, and his stuff is _everywhere._ It's like waking up into some thriller movie, the house the morning after the murder. (Except instead of one night it's been three days, like Jesus rising from the dead, but Jesus probably didn't have pillow creases in his cheeks and crazy person hair and no band, not anymore.)

He has the motherbitch of all hangovers. He spends most of the morning with his head in the toilet, pushing his nose against the white wall in between waves. He keeps waiting for his whole stomach to come out of his mouth, like a starfish, but he gets to where he's just hacking out bile and eventually the nausea subsides. The banging in his head and the stabbing in his middle remain for weeks afterwards, though, like a bruise.

In truth, there are six really, really bad weeks. Frank keeps the blinds closed and listens almost exclusively to The Smiths even though he doesn't even _like_ them. He doesn't adjust the taps when he's washing his hands and the water is hot enough to hurt. He spends most of his time laying on the coffee table in his living room and smoking and tracing patterns into the ceiling. 

It would stay bad, he thinks, for a lot damn longer, maybe for ever, but the weather warms up and Frank starts doing this thing where he picks up when record labels call. Well, he doesn't _pick up_ -pick up, but he taps in his security code and listens to the voicemails they leave and even calls some of them back. The majority turn tail and run when they realize how fucking far from Frank's M.O. MyChem really was. The majority are looking for a Rockstar Guitar Player to make Hit Records and Lots Of Money, and when they realize that Frank has never truly grown out of being the punk kid from Jersey who sang for Pencey Prep, they get real eager to get off the damn phone. One of them sticks in his mind, though - the dude from Staple Records, whose message is: "Hey, man. I feel like shit about doing this, because like… Who the fuck calls the widow about buying the house right after her husband dies, right? But I had to. When you're ready, there's a place here for you - if you want it. Offer stands, no time limit." Frank's not really sure if he's the house or the widow (or the husband) in that scenario, but he copies the number onto his magnetic whiteboard that hangs on his fridge.

Frank gets these terrible stomach pains. At first he thinks maybe he's dying, but they wax and wane with such frequency that he realizes, eventually, that they are anxiety pangs. It's almost funny that he didn't realize that at first. Years ago, he was used to them - they were a part of his day, like jerking off in the shower and drinking coffee on the way to the bus stop - but they'd been gone for so long thanks to a certain band and a certain person that he'd forgotten them altogether. Gerard used to hold Frank in his bunk, rub his stomach and make lists aloud ( _Things Not To Tell Your Mom, Songs That Johnny Cash would've Done Better, Cities Mikey Has Gotten Laid In_ ) until Frank felt better and his stomach stopped aching. 

Frank is fetal on the bathroom floor on Saturday, thinking about that, when he decides enough is enough. He calls Jarrod and they go to Home Depot, where they stick out like sore thumbs, then spend an afternoon hitting their actual thumbs with hammers until they have a makeshift studio.

"Feeling inspired?" Jarrod asks.

"I need a fucking distraction," Frank spits, swinging wildly at a two-by-four.

It takes him awhile to start making music again. He's out walking one of his dogs one Sunday, six-ish, doing the aimless thing where he lets his pooch's nose lead them and doesn't look up until they hit an intersection. If Frank's life were being filmed, there would be a dramatic close-up on the store: _CHEMICAL RECORDS_ the sign proclaims, and if that isn't serendipity that Frank has no idea where that word should be used.

He beelines. The owner, a grizzly guy wearing a pageboy hat who will only introduce himself as Magic, lets Frank bring his dog in on the promise of Frank's life as collateral if she piddles on the rug. Not that it would hurt the rug that much, Frank privately thinks, toeing the grubby carpet, but he stays quiet about that and busies himself in the far corner of the store. He's not looking for anything in particular; he's hardly actually looking to be honest, because suddenly it's very apparent how long it's been since he's been in a record store, and being back is almost sensory overload. Frank loves everything about record stores. He loves that they have invariably quirky owners and bad lighting and that used vinyls always smell kind of weird, but in a comforting way. Frank wants to stay for hours but his stomach aches - in a good way for once - to get home. He steps up his stride, and picks up his guitar as soon as he's in the door.

After the _CHEMICAL RECORDS_ visit, Frank stops making up excuses to not attend the shows Hambone invites him to. It turns out most of the bands are actually Frank's old friends, who prove their quality by not mentioning once that Frank has been avoiding the fuck out of them. He jumps into the centre of the pit while they play, and every time someone knocks against him it feels like they're knocking him free; like he'd been hiding in the nooks and crannies of his body and now he's being shaken loose, filling his fingers and toes and really looking out from behind his eyes. 

At first, Frank just plays. Plays Pencey songs and Deathspells songs and songs by NOFX and Anti-Flag and songs he wrote in high school and still remembers in the back shelving units of his brain. It feels good to get his fingers moving again. They've always felt better against guitar strings than still against his legs. It takes a little longer until it feels right to start composing again, but when he does, it pours out like an ocean. He can't stop and he can't sleep but this time it's for a good cause. He _likes_ what he's making, and he likes making it, and when his mom calls and asks if he's doing okay, he says yes and means it.

That's not to say he's perfect. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and can't breathe, ends up gasping for breath on the floor beside his bed. Everything has been wrapped up, but his old life still feels like loose ends. Frank still loves Gerard, knows - somehow - that Gerard still loves him too. That should be a hopeful thing, but Frank also knows that neither of them are doing anything about it.

Some days Frank feels like his own body is a mausoleum. Gerard is still everywhere - in the scorpion tattoo on his neck and the heart on his arm, in the scar behind his left ear and the way Frank tries to hold his spine straight. Even worse, he's even in every fucking song Frank seems to write and sometimes Frank goes to bed at seven o'clock because he can't think of any particular reason to stay awake.

Frank is not better. But he is better than he was, and that's good enough for now.

\--- 

Ray texts him: _mikey is having a party. go w/ me?_

closely followed by, _g out of town_

and finally, _its not rly a question mikey says you have 2. i will get u sat @ 7._ Ray always texts in threes.

Frank agonizes. It's a weird situation, because Mikey is Gerard's brother but he's also Frank's… Well, Frank's Mikey. His friend and his bass player and his fellow Watchmen Devotee. He barely eats all week, and when he does his nervous stomach traps him in the bathroom for hours. He thought he couldn't become more of a wreck than he already was, but Saturday comes along and Frank is in his bedroom, changing shirts like a teenage girl on a date. He gets stuck in the Flash one, because the door-bell rings and he has to go face Ray. He throws open the door and Ray is on the step, holding a 24 pack and looking a little awkward, but smiling at Frank. His nerves drop away at the sight of Ray, and he grins wide.

"I really fucking hope you still like PBR. I got it half as a joke but like, I really don't think we should waste it," Ray squeaks. It's all he has time for before Frank is smashing into him, sprawling them across the wood. They laugh and the cans roll out in all directions, some hitting patio furniture that Frank doesn't remember buying in the ankles and some bounding down the steps like Slinkies.

"Oh my god," groans Ray, "I almost forgot what it's like to have a bruise-free body."

Ray pulls him to his feet and hugs him, hard and honest. "I missed you, you little shit. Answer a text one in awhile, huh?"

Frank has never been to Mikey's new house. He says this and Ray rolls his eyes, is all _that's why they call it a housewarming._ They walk the driveway together and they haven't even started the stairs before the door swings open and reveals Mikey.

Ray waves and Mikey kind of flaps his hand back, but no one says anything so Frank hands over the frozen veggie burgers he'd made Ray stop for on the way. He instantly feels like a total fucking loser, but Mikey grins at him, loose in that way Mikeyway only gets after three-plus beers. Relief, feeling a lot like sunshine on skin, floods Frank.

"Saved you a side of the barbecue," he says warmly, for Mikey, and ushers them into his house.

It's a pretty okay party that is made magic by the fact that it's been a long time since Frank's been at one. Mikey, at any given time, is always friends with more people than Frank's been friends with in his entire life, so his place gets packed pretty quickly. It's funny - they mingle and move around throughout the house, but Ray, Mikey and Frank stick together. It's instinct, Frank figures. They were always half-band, half-gang, and even if they're technically neither of those anymore, they are still friends, and it feels good to be at a party with his friends.

Around midnight MIkey produces a joint. Frank lights it on the gas stove, to much applause, and the three of them are sharing it over the kitchen island when the doorbell chimes, high-pitched and audible even over the stereo. Mikey raises his eyebrows, which Frank takes to mean as _Be right back._ Frank plucks the joint from his hands as he turns away. Before he's got it to his lips a voice floats over then din that makes his stomach split in half and drop into each of his feet.

"-but who the fuck would even be confused about that? I mean _of course_ Grant Morrison wrote it. Who else could write something like - Mikey! Hi, Mikes! We got back early!" cheers Gerard, reedy and raspy like always. Frank wants to cry. It's fucking pathetic, is what is is; how in love Frank is with him, despite everything.

He blinks a few times and Ray comes into focus, watching him with dawning horror.

"He was supposed to be in Los Angeles, I swear," he says quickly.

"I - uh, bathroom," Frank blurts, like a fucking freak, and books it out of the room.

There's a bathroom off the kitchen, but Frank skirts it. There's always an upstairs bathroom, and it's always greatly ignored. Frank almost feels bad about wandering through his friend's house, but instantly shrugs it off. Mikey is the one that promised Gerard wouldn't be here; the least he can do is enable Frank to freak the fuck out privately. 

He locks himself in before he realizes he's still holding the joint, and it's getting dangerously close to burning his finger tips. He throws it in the toilet and turns to face the mirror. Mikey keeps his trophies in this bathroom, it seems, and they are a jeering backdrop to Frank staring at his reflection. He looks and looks and looks until all his features look wrong, like bad makeup or warped photographs. He looks and very stoically _does not think._ He scratches frantically at his arms and splashes the coldest water he can get on his face and walks back out into the party.

Frank is thankful for the crowd; he uses them as cover as he ducks through the kitchen into the den. The other thing Frank does is make it his personal goal to get fucked up enough for this situation to be bearable. 

It's one of those nights when it's midnight, and then all of a sudden its four a.m. The crow thins out and Frank ends up too stoned to stand, sunk far back into the couch and passing a beer back and forth with Ray. Gerard is in the kitchen. Frank knows because he can see him over the island, but he is fairly sure that Gerard can't see him. Frank can't even help it - he watches, fucking drinks it in. Gerard looks skinny, almost too much, like his bones got too big for his skin or something. His eyes come from too far back in his face and his hair is bright yellow, the stringy length from their last tour all cropped off. He's smoking, too; waving his cigarette around like a conductor, and talking fast to everyone about everything. Every so often he sort of scans around. Frank wants to let himself believe he's looking for him, but if he's being honest, Gerard is probably looking for Mikey. The knowledge does nothing for the constriction in Frank's chest.

Gerard turns his back but Frank can tell he's talking from the way his shoulders are shifting and his hands are yanking at his hair like he's expecting it to be longer than it is. He thinks about a lifetime ago when, instead of sitting not he sofa and trying to look invisible he would in the kitchen, too, sidling up behind Gerard and weaving his arms around his waist. Gerard would be laughing and twisting so he could kiss Frank's forehead and Frank would feel warm and happy and loved and Gerard would smile his special Frank smile.

Frank knows it's screwed up, fixating like this. It's like scrolling through your ex's Facebook - everyone knows it's gonna lead to bad things and more heartache, but everyone fucking does it. Frank's version is just a little more HD live in color. 

When he comes back to himself, Ray is fucking _nodding_ at him.

"I know, man," he says, looking a lot like a wise old medicine man.

"You do?"

"Yep, totally. I mean, you're in love, obviously. But also out of love because you only look at him when he's not looking at you, so you think you're alone in the feeling - _What?_ " he says at Frank's cloudy face. "That's real shit. That's Shakespeare, dude - I'm paraphrasing. Fucking _Romeo_."

"Gerard is _not_ Romeo. And even if he was, I would be… What's her face? The girl before Juliette that he dropped with no fucking notice. He made his feelings pretty clear."

"Well, no. Not really. He made his _thoughts_ pretty clear. They're not always the same thing, and if anyone's proof of that it's Gee."

Something about that tastes too true in his mouth. His palms gets sweaty and he knows it's time to go. Frank makes the decision to leave, and he's on the stoop before he's fully shouldered into his jacket. He pauses to palm the pockets for a road smoke when he hears the door crack, St. Vincent spilling suddenly into the night and then cutting off just as quickly. Frank cranes his neck around and immediately wishes he hadn't. Slowly, he forces his gaze straight and tries to look like the version of himself who does not give a fuck about Gerard as he scans the neighbourhood.

"Fucking _what,_ " he grits out, like he hasn't been thinking of some way to get his attention all night.

Frank can hear Gerard's hesitation. It last a beat too long to be comfortable - almost a calling card for Gerard. And then he knows that Gerard's not wearing shoes, because he can hear his bare feet pad softly along the wood, carrying him to stand beside Frank. Frank tilts his head to look at him, and the sight of Gerard _right there_ sends him reeling. He thinks of how close Gerard used to stand, and how they haven't so much as spoken in months, and now he's right here again. The deja vu makes him seasick.

Gerard extends his arm and Frank glares at him for another beat before his eyes flick down. Curled in Gerard's fist: his smokes. 

He snatches them and rolls his eyes. "What - you give me my smokes and we're even now?"

Gerard jumps. "Of course not, Frank. I just… You left them, and I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to talk to you all night." 

Frank's not sure how it happens. He's fucked up - that has a lot to do with it - but it's also that Gerard smells like, _really_ good, and is standing too close and it's been so goddamn long since Frank was anywhere near Gerard. Frank knows why he's mad at Gerard, knows what Gerard did, but all of that fades into fog as they watch each other. Frank can hear both their heartbeats and all he can think is that he doesn't know when - _if_ \- Gerard will ever be this close to him again.

"Gee," he croaks, and then everything explodes. Frank feels like sobbing - like his chest is broken. Their teeth gnash into each other, but Gerard tastes like he's supposed too and he's warm and soft. The little voice in the back of his brain is screaming, because he's not really supposed to be doing this, not at all, but he _missed this_ , so he fists Gerard's hair to shut the voice up.

Gerard pulls back. He kisses Frank's face like a compass: cheek, chin, cheek, forehead. He kisses Frank's forehead and extra time before he sighs, and rests their foreheads together. "You're drunk, Frankie," he whispers, sounding apologetic.

That's all it takes to break the spell. Frank whirls, wiping roughly at his mouth. He feels like a fucking idiot - Gerard's got this look like he's going to let Frank down easy, and it fills Frank up above the eyes with rage. Pain flashes in his stomach and even though Frank has wanted Gerard to say _anything_ to him for the last five months so much it hurt, he suddenly doesn't want to hear anything that comes out of his mouth.

"Fuck _yes_ I'm drunk. It's a fucking party. So I'm fucking drunk at the fucking party, call the fucking church." Frank angrily shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, curling them into fists. "Pot; kettle; black, Gerard."

"I don't drink anymore, Frankie."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should, you know? At least you'd have an excuse for all the fucked up shit you do," Frank spits, and before he can help himself: "I used to think the drugs and the booze and the depression like, made you do things. Used to blame it on that, you know? But now I think maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's just you, Gerard. Maybe you just do shitty things."

Gerard actually jerks, like the words hit him in a physical way. He snaps his mouth together like a puppet and stands there resigned and, despite everything, Frank feels bad. Frank almost tells Gerard that he broke his heart, but he stops, because Frank knows the truth. His heart isn't broken - breaks heal. This is something deeper. Something fundamental that can't be stitched up.

Instead, he says, "My heart's just sore, okay, Gerard? And I'm drunk and I want to go the fuck home, not relive the worst day of my fucking life with my ex… _whatever._ "

And he does. And as much as he wants to, he doesn't look back once.

\--- 

Two weeks later, Mikey shows up with a paper coffee cup in each hand and a cigarette pursed between his lips. "Hi," he says around it. "You ran out of my party, so we're having coffee."

"I see that."

"Except," he continues, gesturing precariously with the cups, "I drank both of these on the drive here, so you have to make some more for us. Let me in."

Frank sighs and steps aside. Frank makes espresso on the stove using the set he got that one time they were in Italy, and they sit on the back deck to drink it, the dogs making mazes of their ankles. Mikey produces a baby joint as an apology for drinking the coffees - from _CoffeeTyme,_ where they slow perk, _goddamn_ \- and they share it, gazing into the ravine that backs Frank's place. They bullshit for a long time, the conversation weaving like crosstich between people they know, and people they know by extension, movies they want to watch and bands they want to see. It's light, kind of pointless, but it's good to be sitting here with his friend.

"You haven't talked to Gee," Mikey says softly, like's been trying to work it into the conversation and has given it up as a bad job.

"Since I yelled at him on your porch?" Mikey fixes him a look, and Frank sighs. "He hasn't talked to me."

Mikey immediately spots the difference. He chuckles, like it's more sad than funny, and pat's Frank's knees, one at a time and with a bounce to his palm, like they're bongos.

Mikey is quiet for another long stretch of time, his soft smoking the only sound. He coughs, and says, "He has, though. You just haven't heard it, yet." Frank looks at him, and he shrugs. "I mean, he's at my place like, a lot. Like, a _lot-alot_ \- he says my kitchen has good concept or something, and it's the only place he can work. I hear him, obviously, and…" Mikey nods, like he's deciding.

"It's a song, Frankie," he tells him. "Gerard wrote you a song."

"He didn't," says Frank, like he hasn't written going-on ten about Gerard.

Mikey snorts. "He said it's about, like. Jewel thieves. But he's lying, Frankie. I heard it. He called it _Millions._ "

"As in, the _candy?"_

"As in, _it's a big fucking metaphor about Frank Iero and his favourite candy and how my idiot brother is totally fucking in love with him_ \- not that I said a fucking thing to you, though, right?" 

"Gerard loves Lindsey," Frank hears himself say, like a robot.

Mikey sniffs. "Gerard is staying with our parents."

"In the basement?"

Mikey nods sagely. "In the _basement."_

After this, there is a heat wave that last for fucking _ever_ , and it's very literal - the temperature washes over Frank like a solid thing, takes up residence in his lungs and makes even breathing labourous. It's so. Fucking. Hot. Frank's spent time in Japan and Los Angeles and other extremely warm climates, but Jersey is such an icebox in the winter that it makes you forget how much of an armpit it turns into in the summer months. It lulls you into a false sense of cool safety, so every July it can punch you straight in the face. This year is no different. He sleeps naked and on top of the sheets, windows open and all the fans in the house moved into his bedroom and pointed straight at the bed. It's still too hot to sleep, so Frank finds himself absently thumbing thorugh his twitter feed on his phone. That's how he sees it in the first place - a fan @'s it to him.

It's like, a slideshow, and it's shit phone quality, and some idiots are totally talking right over the second fucking verse but there is no denying it. It is absolutely Gerard, absolutely singing a song about Frank.  
  
"You twist my arm,  
I'm twisting fate  
You'll leave alone,  
or crazy great  
or break into a million pieces,  
all your reasons…

"You believe in love  
I believe in faith  
They'll believe in anything,  
you make up villains… 

"It was really me It was really you  
There was really nothing I could do… 

"You don't understand, we don't hold hands 

"Come catch me, run  
Cos I'm not having any fun  
I think you're sore  
I think I'm done  
A million reasons 

Can I be your number one?" 

"You stupid motherfucker," says Frank to the empty room. For the first time in a long time, even though Frank fights hard to stamp it down, hope flicks in his belly.

August is the month of change. The guy from Staple Records - who turns out to be a deep-voiced girl name Kat - comes over at Frank's behest. He phones in an act of desperation during a particularly lingering stomachache, thinking the decisive nature of the action will do some healing. She comes over and they eat pancakes (even though it's eight o'lock ad night because Frank is the pancake king) and Frank signs on the dotted line. He gets his own imprint, B.CALM, and he gets full creative control and the girl doesn't even care if Frank records in his fucking basement, as long as he's doing _something._

"Why are you being this good to me?" he finally has to ask.

"Dunno," she says, shrugging. "I can just tell. You've got something to say, and I wanna help make sure people hear you when you do."

The other thing that happens during this time is that Gerard sort of becomes impossible to ignore. It's like he really wants to talk to Frank, and will do anything short of actually fucking talking to him to make that happen. Of course, it's not like Frank is much better. He ends up watching Gerard's social media accounts like the stations of the cross, waiting for something miraculous to happen.

Which it does. Everything Gerard fucking does for the next while is extremely _wink-wink-nod-nod_ at Frank. At first Frank is sure he's reading into things - like, just because they once had life-affirming sex while Friday the 13th was on doesn't mean Gerard is spamming kill-scenes from it get his attention (which, okay, is a weird goddamn way to tell someone you like them, but Frank knows Gerard.) It's little things like that that Frank keeps dismissing. But then Gerard starts up The Weekend Pancake Report and that is it. It's as if Gerard put up a huge poster that said _HI FRANK, THIS IS DIRECTED AT YOU, FROM GERARD._

It's not something they ever talked about in interviews, but pancakes are integral to Frank and Gerard's history. The first time they ever met, Frank was invited to a MyChem band practice and showed up baked out of his skull. When Gerard asked him what they thought he had said they sounded "subversive, but comforting and familiar at the sometime. Like having pancakes for supper, you know? Wrong, but kind of really, really right?" They all laughed their asses off and the next time Gerard invited Frank to hang, it was just the two of them and Gerard made pancakes for them and after that it has sort of become a thing they did that kept them grounded whenever shit got ridiculous. The night before they put out Bullets. When they were trying to decide if they should sign to Warner Brothers. Like, when they got in the huge fight after Gerard kissed him onstage and then pushed him the fuck off and didn't talk for three weeks - on tour, no less - they made up over pancakes.

It's a dumb little thing. But seeing it all over Gerard's twitter makes Frank's heart take up residence below his Adam's Apple. Everything he tries to say for the rest of the day gets choked down by it, like it's not important enough by comparison.

It's a weird thing, the realization that Gerard wants him. He's not surprised that Gerard loves him - Gerard has always loved him, and he has always known - but he's surprised that Gerard is fully really aware of it and, above that, not fighting it but brazenly hinting at it, over and over again.

And then Action Cat happens. He finds out about it not because he's stalking Gerard through social media (which he is) but he's downstairs working when Mikey calls. He doesn't say hello, but Frank hears smoking and figures out who it is pretty quickly.

"Action Cat," he says.

"Ummm."

"Does that mean anything to you?"

"Should it?" Frank is perplexed.

"Please, _please_ call my brother. He's fucking _pining,_ okay?"

So that's how Frank ends up on YouTube a _second_ time, searching Gerard's name and trying to reason that it's really not _that_ creepy.

"We want television bodies that we can keep  
We have battles in the dark when she falls asleep  
We can make it up again  
We can make it up again  
and we don’t care we just pretend  
with the faces of the men  
And don’t ask a lot  
and you won’t lose a lot  
Don’t ask for much 

"Every accidental damage that I wouldn’t take  
Every heart I left behind that you couldn’t break  
We can make it up again  
We can make it up again  
and we don’t care we just pretend  
with the faces of the men  
And don’t ask a lot  
and you won’t lose a lot  
Don’t ask for much 

And I still miss you  
say I missed you too  
still I miss you  
say I missed me too  
still I missed you  
say I missed me too 

"We want action and decision that we can fake  
We got fire cracker wishes that we can make  
We can make it up again  
We can make it up again  
and we don’t care we just pretend  
with the faces of the men  
And don’t ask a lot  
and you won’t lose a lot  
Don’t ask for much 

Oh>  
Do you miss me?  
Cause I miss you  
Do you miss me?  
Cause I miss you  
Do you miss me?  
Cause I miss you  
Do you miss me?  
Cause I miss you so…" 

Before the last chord is done ringing out, Frank is having an epiphany. Gerard is a stupid fucking asshole, yes, but he is a stupid fucking asshole that loves Frank and is finally, _finally_ willing to do something about it. And he is proving how much of a stupid fucking asshole he is by writing a cryptic apocalyptic pop-song about it instead of, oh, picking up a phone.

Frank does it before he can stop himself. Kat told him he needed to post a blog about the record, anyway, and it's not like Frank's blogs aren't usually multi-topical. So, he buries a link to Action Cat in the middle of his post ("it's really really good" Frank tells whoever reads his blog, and hopefully Gerard.) and makes himself go to sleep before he can freak the fuck out.

.

\---  
If their lives were one of the independent films that Gerard loves so much, it would be twilight and there would be a grey, poetic drizzle when Gerard shows up. It isn't, though, so when Frank swings open his front door to find an awkward looking gerard, its super sunny and really kind of early.

"You listened to my song," Gerard says instead of _hello,_ or its _been a long time_ or fucking _sorry_. 

Frank fights very hard to keep his voice steady. "To be fair," he says, "I listened to them all. Action Cat's just the only one I thought was any good."

Gerard gapes at him, and Frank takes the opportunity to look him over. He looks… _softer_ than he has in a long time. _Danger Days_ made him all angles and bones, but this Gerard resembles his _Bullets_ self much more. He's a little pudgy under his fatigue jacket and his dark hair is crammed under a beanie. Frank can see the bulge in his left pocket where his cigarettes are, can see that his fly is worn and just a little undone. 

Frank clears his throat. He closes the door and steps out onto the porch, suddenly feeling very under-dressed in his frayed pajama bottoms and ratty Black Flag shirt. He wanders to the front of the porch, so he can lean on against the railing, and Gerard mimics.

"For the record," Frank says roughly, "if you wanted to talk to me, you could've just done it. Like, instead of getting a record deal over it and obsessively instagraming pancakes."

"Tweeting," Gerard corrects. He shoves his hands in his pants pockets and bounces back and forth on his feet. "Kind of thought you hated me."

"Maybe I do."

"Do you?" Gerard asks quickly, overly light.

There's a longer pause. When Frank speaks again, his voice is very small. "I don't know. Sometimes, no. Sometimes… more."

Gerard reaches all jerky, like his brain is fighting with his body for the right to touch Frank. He gets stuck halfway and laces his hands together awkwardly in front of him. For some reason, this just about the saddest thing Frank has ever seen. (He remembers a time when touching him wouldn't have been a debate; it would've been easy and good, like falling asleep in the early morning after a truly epic night.)

"I know it doesn't fix anything, Frankie, but… I'm sorry. Super, fucking, majorly, really _sorry_."

Frank almost says it's okay, but it's not, really, and they both know it so he doesn't say anything.

"I do, you know," Gerard says, trying hard to say it lightly. "Miss you, I mean. I miss you a fucking lot."

"So I've heard. Like, eighty times in the last minute of that song," he narrows his eyes. "Assuming it's about me, I mean."

"It's about you. They're _all_ about you, Frankie."

Frank snorts. "Am I an idea or a muse nowadays? It's hard to keep up."

"Fucking _neither_ ," Gerard rakes his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "You are Frank and I am Gerard and and I fucked everything up. I was… so scared. I'm always fucking scared, Frankie. And you never are! You just… _believe in things_ , right? And you fight for them, and you love really hard, with everything you have, and you are just the best fucking person I have ever met. You're it for me, Frankie, ok?"

"If I'm _it,_ why did you blow me off?" Frank hollers.

"Because," Gerard says, eyes bugging out of his head like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You're it for me, but I'm not that for you. It's like… Okay, you're Laurie, right? And I'm Doc Manhatten. And I love the shit out of you, but you're better off without me, you know? Like, I'm just fucking you up. You _literally_ are galaxies out of my league, and I am the least you could do."

Frank gapes and Gerard heaves breaths, and they're in this weird stand-off and Frank really wants to say something but all he hears in his head are car alarms.

"Frank?" 

"That is… That is actually the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard. For someone who is border-line genius, you're pretty fucking dumb, Gerard. You're like one of those people that's so smart they can't understand how to do normal shit, like tie their shoelaces and cook spaghetti."

There's a moment, a split of a second where they just stare at each other and then they're in stitches. Frank laughs so hard he bends at the middle, and Gerard is doing that excited donkey-braying thing he does when he really laughs, and the sound explodes in Frank's chest.

Frank is wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. When he straightens, Gerard is suddenly _there_. He is right in Frank's space. He thinks Gerard can probably hear his heart, which is currently keeping a worse rhythm than Mikey did, that one practice he'd taken Percocets and had an epiphany explaining that he should replace Bob.

Frank forces himself to meet Gerard's gaze. "So. You love me?"

Gerard looks confused. "You know that, Frank."

"But you said you didn't."

Gerard takes a deliberate step forward into Franks space. "Like i said…" he breathes, "I was scared. And I wanted better for you. But I'm selfish, and I don't want better for you anymore. I just want you."

"Because you love me," Frank concludes, awed.

"I do. Do you love me? Still, I mean?"

"Always," Frank says quickly.

Gerard's fingers wrap around Frank's jaw, and his eyes sparkle as he looks down, studying him. "What is that like?"

Frank looks back. He thinks of everything Gerard this year, has ever done, and despite the multitude of shitty calls he's made, he's made so many good ones. He's made Frank what he is, and for better or for worse, he is an essential part of Frank. He thinks of how Gerard looks with cigarettes - like he can finally breath again - and thinks that that is exactly how this feels. 

"Soul crushing," Frank says, and then kisses Gerard, hard, before he can say anything else.


End file.
